July 31, 2024 • 2:57 pm Comments Off on Ani Aznavoorian’s Family-Made Cello
A new post for The Strad on this month’s just-concluded Summer Festival presented by Seattle Chamber Music Society:
With its roster of several dozen internationally prominent musicians, the just-concluded 2024 edition of the Summer Festival presented by the Seattle Chamber Music Society involved a de facto summit of priceless string instruments in action….
Filed under: cellists, luthier, Seattle Chamber Music Society, Strad
July 1, 2024 • 12:14 pm Comments Off on 2024 Summer Festival with Seattle Chamber Music Society
Tonight is the opening concert of the 2024 edition of the Seattle Chamber Music Society’s annual Summer Festival. I wrote a preview for The Seattle Times here:
Sure, the Seattle Chamber Music Society has a menu of the usual star composers — Beethoven, Brahms, Dvořák — for its Summer Festival running July 1-26. But this year, the festival is boasting an actual menu that will be designed onstage by Seattle star chefs. …
Filed under: James Ehnes, music news, Seattle Chamber Music Society, Seattle Times
March 12, 2024 • 7:55 pm Comments Off on Seattle is a (West) Coastal Haven for String Players
My latest piece for Strings magazine:
“To describe the beauties of this region will, on some future occasion, be a very grateful task to the pen of a skillful panegyrist,” reported Captain George Vancouver in 1792. Vancouver led the first European expedition to chart Puget Sound—as he dubbed what would become the US portion of the larger Salish Sea long inhabited by the Coast Salish indigenous peoples. Many of the British place names conferred by Vancouver have endured, but the area’s best-known city, Seattle, founded by white settlers in 1851, stands apart as being named after an indigenous leader, Chief Seattle (using the Anglicized version of his actual Lushootseed name, Siʔaɬ)…
Filed under: Seattle Chamber Music Society, Strings
January 21, 2024 • 12:23 pm Comments Off on Seattle Chamber Music Society’s 2024 Winter Festival
Two blissful weekends of intimate music-making are about to start as Seattle Chamber Music Society’s 2024 Winter Festival kicks off on Friday, 26 January. Artistic Director James Ehnes will appear in all six programs over the festival’s two weekends. On opening night, he’ll join colleagues Amy Schwartz Moretti, Che-Yen Chen, Cynthia Phelps, Edward Arron, and Efe Baltacıgil for Brahms’s String Sextet No. 1 in B-flat major, Op. 18; the program also includes Ravel’s Violin Sonata No. 2 in G major and British composer Rebecca Clarke’s Piano Trio — part of this winter edition’s focus on 20th-century British composers.
Jan. 26-28 and Feb. 2-4; Benaroya Hall, 200 University St., Seattle; $30-$65; subscriptions and streaming options available; free prelude recital starts an hour before each concert; seattlechambermusic.org
Filed under: chamber music, James Ehnes, Seattle Chamber Music Society
July 12, 2023 • 11:24 am Comments Off on Best Bets for Seattle Chamber Music Society’s 2023 Summer Festival
I suggested some unmissable programs in this year’s edition off the 2023 Summer Festival, which lasts throughout July:
Changes have been afoot since the Seattle Chamber Music Society returned to a full live season — from a roving concert truck to a new center located downtown — but what remains a constant is the embarrassment of riches that its Summer Festival offers throughout the month of July.
Filed under: music news, Seattle Chamber Music Society
July 6, 2023 • 9:42 am Comments Off on Triplet of Trios Sets the Tone for Seattle’s Summer of Chamber Music
Seattle Chamber Music Society’s 2023 Summer Festival is now in full swing. My review of the opening night concert:
Opening night concerts can be an invitation to default to lightweight programming, letting extramusical distractions become the focus. Not so at Seattle Chamber Music Society. The 2023 Summer Festival kicked off with a concert that kept the audience’s attention avidly fixed on the music at hand…
Filed under: chamber music, James Ehnes, Maurice Ravel, review, Seattle Chamber Music Society
January 28, 2023 • 6:41 am Comments Off on SCMS Winter Festival 2023
Seattle Chamber Music Society’s 2023 edition of the Winter Festival has started, presenting two weekends of chamber music by Beethoven, Fanny Mendelssohn, Ravel, William Grant Still, Julia Perry, et al. plus a new work by contemporary American composer Jeremy Turner, who is especially known for his TV and stage scores.
The second weekend of concerts includes the local premiere (Feb. 3) of Turner’s Six Mile House for clarinet, violin, piano, and cello. which was inspired by the Charleston, SC-based urban legend about Sweeney Todd-ish murders said to have been committed by an evil innkeeper couple.
SCMS Artistic Director James Ehnes will be onstage for the three concerts of the second weekend, playing works by Brahms, Shostakovich, and César Franck. And a free prelude recital is open to the public before each concert — no ticket required. Here’s the free prelude lineup:
January 27 – 6:30PM
Richard Strauss: Violin Sonata, Op.18
Arnaud Sussmann, violin
Jeewon Park, piano
January 28 – 6:30PM
Franz Schubert: Fantasie in F minor, D. 940
Dmitri Shostakovich: Piano Trio No. 2 in E minor, Op. 67
SCMS Academy Musicians
January 29 – 2:00PM
Sergei Prokofiev: Piano Sonata No. 6, Op. 82
Adam Neiman, piano
February 3 – 6:30PM
Julia Perry: Prelude
William Grant Still: Three Visions
George Gershwin: Rhapsody in Blue, solo version 1924
Andrew Armstrong, piano
February 4 – 6:30PM
Ludwig van Beethoven: Piano Trio in C minor, Op. 1 No. 3
SCMS Academy Musicians
February 5 – 2:00PM
Franz Joseph Haydn: String Quartet in F minor, Op. 20, No. 5
James Ehnes and Amy Schwartz Moretti, violins;
Che-Yen Chen, viola; Edward Arron, cello
Filed under: chamber music, James Ehnes, Seattle Chamber Music Society
July 7, 2022 • 9:56 am Comments Off on Seattle Chamber Music Society Launches Its 2022 Summer Festival
And they’re off to an auspicious start… Here’s my review of opening night for Bachtrack:
Nothing could stop this show from going on — not even a popped viola string nearly midway through Béla Bartók’s grueling String Quartet no. 6 at the center of the program that opened the Seattle Chamber Music Society’s 2022 Summer Festival…
Filed under: Bartók, Beethoven, Brahms, review, Seattle Chamber Music Society
June 25, 2022 • 8:57 pm Comments Off on Seattle Chamber Music Society Concert Truck
To tee off the 2022 Summer Festival, which starts on 5 July, Seattle Chamber Music Society is introducing the Concert Truck: a mobile concert hall equipped with piano and professional lighting and sound. The Concert Truck will be giving free chamber concerts at stops around the Seattle region in the days leading up to the opening of the Festival.
The Schedule:
Thursday, June 23/Program A
1:00pm: Wedgewood Presbyterian Church
5:00pm: Lake City Farmers Market
Friday, June 24/Program B
1:00pm: Westlake Park
7:00pm: Magnuson Park (near Kite Hill)
Saturday, June 25/Program B
12:00pm: Bellevue Botanical Garden
5:00pm: Gasworks Park
Sunday, June 26/Program A
10:00am: Ballard Farmers Market
5:00pm: Madison Park North Beach
Tuesday, June 28/Program C
6:00pm: Seattle Chinese Garden
Wednesday, June 29/Program C
11:00am: Freeway Park
5:30pm: Columbia City Farmers Market
Thursday, June 30/Program C
11:00am: Bridge Park Retirement
5:30pm: Central Park (in Columbia City)
Friday, July 1/Program C
4:00pm: Ashwood Park (Bellevue)
Saturday, July 2/Program C
11:00am: Pike Place Market (Victor Steinbrueck Park)
And the programs:
PROGRAM A:
Thursday June 23 & Sunday June 26
Felix Mendelssohn Piano Trio No. 1
Gabriel Fauré Après un rêve
William Grant-Still Mother and Child
George Gershwin Rhapsody in Blue
Eleanor Alberga 3-Day Mix
PROGRAM B:
Friday June 24 & Saturday June 25
Sergei Rachmaninoff Cello Sonata in g minor
Gabriel Fauré Après un rêve
George Gershwin Rhapsody in Blue
Eleanor Alberga 3-Day Mix
PROGRAM C:
June 28 through July 2
Antonín Dvořák Piano Quintet in A major
William Grant-Still Mother and Child
Henri Vieuxtemps Souvenir d’Amerique
Beethoven Eyeglasses Duo
George Gershwin Rhapsody in Blue
Eleanor Alberga 3-Day Mix
Filed under: music news, Seattle Chamber Music Society
January 21, 2022 • 10:11 am Comments Off on Winter Festival
This weekend marks the start of Seattle Chamber Music Society’s two-weekend Winter Festival.
And see the video above for a lecture by Michael Kannen, cellist, founding member of the Brentano String Quartet, and Professor of Chamber Music at the Peabody Institute, about the piano quintets of Antonin Dvořák, Dmitri Shostakovich, and Cesar Franck — all featured this winter.
Filed under: Seattle Chamber Music Society
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